Transcript of "Us sc and empathy"

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SUPREME COURT JUSTICES, EMPATHY, AND SOCIAL CHANGE: A COMMENT ON LANI GUINIER’S DEMOSPRUDENCE THROUGH DISSENT LINDA C. MCCLAIN∗INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 589 I. REVISITING THE ROLE OF JUDICIAL BIOGRAPHY AND EMPATHY ........ 591 II. PRESIDENT OBAMA, EMPATHY, AND JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS ......... 597 III. THE ROLE OF THE SUPREME COURT IN SPURRING SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION .............................................................................. 601CONCLUSION: PURSUING JUSTICE IN EVERYDAY LIFE ................................... 602 INTRODUCTION That controversial decisions by the United States Supreme Court can spurdissenting citizens to action is, by now, a familiar idea. The primary recentexample remains the intense and sustained efforts to prohibit or substantiallyrestrict access to legal abortion spurred by Roe v. Wade,1 in which the Courtrecognized a woman’s right to decide whether or not to continue herpregnancy.2 Conversely, the Court’s failure to recognize a constitutional right– for example, its controversial five-to-four Bowers v. Hardwick holding thatthe constitutional right of privacy did not extend to private, consensual conductby homosexuals3 – may provoke citizens to seek social change and to turn toother fora, such as state and federal legislatures or state courts.4 ∗ Professor of Law and Paul M. Siskind Research Scholar, Boston University School ofLaw. This Essay expands on my remarks delivered as a participant of the panel, “BeyondLegislatures: Social Movements, Social Change, and the Possibilities of Demosprudence,”at the symposium, “The Most Disparaged Branch: The Role of Congress in the 21stCentury,” held at Boston University School of Law, November 14-15, 2008. Thanks toLani Guinier for her catalytic work and to my other co-panelists, Fred Harris, Robert Post,and Gerald Rosenberg, for their stimulating engagement with that work. This Essaybenefitted from that discussion. Thanks also to my research assistant, Jennifer Dixon, andto Boston University Head of Reference Services at Pappas Law Library, StefanieWeigmann, for valuable research assistance. 1 410 U.S. 113 (1973). 2 Id. at 153. 3 Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186, 190 (1986), overruled by Lawrence v. Texas, 539U.S. 558 (2003). 4 For a history of such post-Hardwick efforts, see WILLIAM N. ESKRIDGE JR.,DISHONORABLE PASSIONS: SODOMY LAWS IN AMERICA, 1861-2003, at 250-52, 269-98(2008). 589

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590 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:589 In a recent article, Professor Lani Guinier takes up an intriguing variation onthis idea, asserting that dissenting justices, both through written, butparticularly through oral, dissents, may spur “ordinary people” to action.5 Instressing the role of dissents in expanding the range of democratic action,Guinier is not merely reiterating the point that well-written dissenting opinionsserve important functions because they may provide the foundation formajority opinions “twenty years from now,” or “broaden the jurisprudentialrange . . . of the next generation of law students” by capturing theirimaginations.6 Rather, in stressing that “Justices teach by their opinions,”7 shecontends that “[i]n a contemporary context, . . . dissenting Justices mayeducate, inspire, and mobilize citizens to serve the present as well as the futuregoals of our democracy.”8 Guinier offers concrete examples in which oraldissents apparently mobilized citizens and lent authority to their efforts atsocial change and law reform:9 Justice Breyer’s oral dissent from the Court’sholding striking down Seattle’s and Louisville’s voluntary school integrationplans in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No.1,10 and Justice Ginsburg’s oral dissent from the Court’s narrow reading of thestatute of limitations for filing a sex discrimination claim under Title VII inLedbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.11 Observing that this tool is not thesole province of one “side” of the Court, Guinier contends that a particularlytalented dissenter is Justice Scalia, who self-consciously uses both his oral andwritten dissents as a means of “advocating for the future . . . for the nextgeneration and for law students.”12 Guinier (along with Gerald Torres, her co-author elsewhere) coins the term “demosprudence” to refer to “lawmaking or 5 See Lani Guinier, The Supreme Court, 2007 Term – Foreword: DemosprudenceThrough Dissent, 122 HARV. L. REV. 4, 12 (2008). 6 Id. at 14. Of course, judicial dissents may play this foundational role outside thecontext of federal constitutional law as well. See, e.g., KIMBERLY D. RICHMAN, COURTINGCHANGE: QUEER PARENTS, JUDGES, AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN FAMILY LAW123-151 (2009) (arguing that dissents by state court judges in family law cases have playeda foreshadowing and catalytic role in instructing lawyers about how to craft future legalchallenges and in paving the way for later majority opinions recognizing the parental rightsof gay men and lesbians). 7 Guinier, supra note 5, at 14. In describing demosprudential dissenters “at their best,”as “teachers in a vital national seminar,” Guiner draws on scholarship concerning theeducative role of Supreme Court opinions. Id. at 49 (quoting Christopher L. Eisgruber, Isthe Supreme Court an Educative Institution?, 67 N.Y.U. L. REV. 961, 962 (1992)). 8 Id. 9 Id. at 6-13, 35-45. 10 127 S. Ct. 2738, 2768 (2007). 11 127 S. Ct. 2162 (2007), superseded by statute, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009,Pub. L. No. 111-2, 123 Stat. 5. 12 Guinier, supra note 5, at 45 (quoting Posting of Dan Slater to WSJ Law Blog,http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/05/30/law-blog-chats-with-scalia-part-ii-master-of-the-dissent/ (May 30, 2008, 21:04 EST)).

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2009] EMPATHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE 591legal practices that inform and are informed by the wisdom of the people.”13Because dissents have “democracy-enhancing potential,”14 she urges theSupreme Court to “see beyond academics to the people themselves as a sourceof democratic authority and accountability.”15 In this Essay, I will offer three observations about Professor Guinier’sintriguing project of encouraging the use of dissent to catalyze democraticaction. First, I examine the connection that Guinier sees between a dissentingJustice’s life experience and his or her capacity to be moved by a litigant’splight.16 I look back to Lynne Henderson’s exploration, more than twentyyears ago, of empathy’s role in shaping Justices’ opinions.17 Second, I discussthe emphasis on life experience and the capacity for empathy in PresidentObama’s public statements about judicial qualifications, criticized by some forstressing empathy to the detriment of justice and the rule of law.18 Third, Icontrast Guinier’s call for Supreme Court Justices to be more mindful of thedemocratic potential of their dissents with political scientist Rogers Smith’sproposal that judicial rulings, particularly those by the Supreme Court, canfurther social transformation by “usefully highlight[ing] the way existingarrangements appear to be working against constitutional goals and values,”and identifying “the most important tasks of civic restructuring that confrontthe rest of us.”19 Smith’s comparative modesty about the institutional capacityof courts to bring about needed social transformation offers an instructivecontrast to Guinier’s aspirations for dissenters.20 I. REVISITING THE ROLE OF JUDICIAL BIOGRAPHY AND EMPATHY What moves a Supreme Court Justice to issue an oral dissent? This questionspurs further questions, including one to which numerous academics, jurists,and politicians have offered answers: what qualities are foundational for good 13 Id. at 15. Guinier and Torres expound this idea of “demosprudence” in theirforthcoming book, LANI GUINIER & GERALD TORRES, CHANGING THE WIND: THEDEMOSPRUDENCE OF LAW AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS (forthcoming 2010). 14 Guinier, supra note 5, at 15. 15 Id. at 131. 16 Id. at 32-45 (examining the biographies of Justices Thurgood Marshall, StephenBreyer, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in relation to their most memorable dissents). 17 Lynne Henderson, Legality and Empathy, 85 MICH. L. REV. 1574, 1576 (1987)(arguing that “empathy enables the decisionmaker to have an appreciation of the humanmeanings of a given legal situation”). 18 See, e.g., Steven G. Calabresi, Obama’s ‘Redistribution’ Constitution, WALL ST. J.,Oct. 28, 2008, at A17 (criticizing then-Senator Obama’s remarks about looking at a judge’sempathy when deciding judicial appointments). 19 Rogers M. Smith, Gender at the Margins of Contemporary Constitutional Citizenship,in GENDER EQUALITY: DIMENSIONS OF WOMEN’S EQUAL CITIZENSHIP (Linda C. McClain &Joanna L. Grossman eds., forthcoming Oct. 2009) (manuscript at 5, on file with author). 20 Id. (manuscript at 4).

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592 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:589judging?21 Professor Guinier proposes that something in the biography ofparticular Justices leads them to identify with the losing litigant and with theconstituencies who will bear the impact of the majority’s opinion and to speakdirectly to those people in their oral dissents.22 For example, Justice Breyer,who issued an oral dissent in Parents Involved, “taught administrative law, andhis father was the lawyer for the Superintendents of Schools in SanFrancisco.”23 She posits that his dissent is “speaking to school boards” andthat his “experience” connects him to those school board members whoseefforts were halted by the majority’s ruling.24 Guinier contends that Breyerexhorts school board members to keep trying, telling them: “[D]o not feelparalyzed by the majority because the law is on your side and the Court isacting as a renegade.”25 Indeed, she argues that Pat Todd, a Louisville schoolboard member, took Justice Breyer’s exhortation “seriously,” persisting in herendeavors by always reading his dissent at the beginning of her publicpresentations around the county.26 Guinier argues that biography is also relevant to understanding JusticeGinsburg’s impassioned oral dissent in Ledbetter, in which Ginsburg spokedirectly to working women whose pay discrimination claims would be barredby the Court’s ruling (using the formulation “you”), and to Congress, urging itto correct the Court’s ruling.27 Ginsburg’s role as a pioneer of the litigationstrategy that led to key equal protection rulings by the Court in the 1970s is arelevant biographical fact that might have moved Ginsburg to speak to thefemale workers suffering pay inequity.28 Guinier suggests that Ginsburg also“found her own voice,” and had a “transformational moment” in issuing theoral dissent, helping to convert Lilly Ledbetter’s loss into a “legislativecrusade” to change the law.29 This dissent expressed Ginsburg’s belief that“legislative and political strategies for reform are more sustainable” than 21 See, e.g., Judith Resnik, On the Bias: Feminist Reconsiderations of the Aspirations forOur Judges, 61 S. CAL. L. REV. 1877, 1943 (1988) (arguing for a “revision of the conceptionof the task of judging”). 22 See Guinier, supra note 5, at 32 (suggesting that Justice Thurgood Marshall’s “mostmemorable dissents came in the areas in which he was most influential as an advocate”). 23 Id. at 37. 24 Id. (“That Justice Breyer is speaking to school boards, rather than directly to thepeople . . . suggests a distinctive avenue for democratic engagement.”). 25 Id. 26 Id. at 38. 27 Id. at 39 (“Often relying on the personal pronoun, Justice Ginsburg spoke directly to‘you’ – the women who had been paid less but had no redress.”). 28 Id. at 38-39; see, e.g., Kenneth L. Karst, “The Way Women Are”: Some Notes in theMargin for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 20 U. HAW. L. REV. 619, 619 (1998) (describing JusticeGinsburg’s role as an advocate for “equal treatment” under the law). 29 Guinier, supra note 5, at 40.

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2009] EMPATHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE 593judicial rulings.30 Guinier argues that Ginsburg also modeled, for workingwomen, how to participate in the public sphere and “helped authorize womento push back on the dominant norms of the Court’s conservative majority andto elaborate their own stories.”31 Guinier’s attending to the ways in which their biographies may have ledSupreme Court Justices to reach out to litigants and to ordinary citizens bringsto mind work done some years ago concerning the relationship betweenlegality and empathy, or how a judge’s capacity for empathy may shape his orher ruling.32 In her article, Legality and Empathy, Lynne Henderson began byquoting Justice Thurgood Marshall: “It is perfectly proper for judges todisagree about what the Constitution requires. But it is disgraceful for aninterpretation of the Constitution to be premised upon unfounded assumptionsabout how people live.”33 Henderson’s project challenges the assumption that “legality,” or “thedominant belief system about the Rule and role of Law,” and “empathy,” are“mutually exclusive concepts,” such that emotion and feeling should be keptseparate from the work of judges.34 Empathy, she writes, entails: “(1) feelingthe emotion of another; (2) understanding the experience or situation ofanother, . . . often achieved by imagining oneself to be in the position of theother; and (3) action brought about by experiencing the distress of another”;the first two elements are “ways of knowing,” while the third is a “catalyst foraction.”35 Henderson argues that empathy is a valuable “way of knowing” thatcan aid judges in appreciating “the human meanings of a given legal situation,”and in the processes of reaching decisions and justifying conclusions.36 30 Id. at 41 (citing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Some Thoughts on Autonomy and Equality inRelation to Roe v. Wade, 63 N.C. L. REV. 375 (1985)). 31 Id. Guinier also notes that Justice Ginsburg issued an impassioned written and oraldissent in Gonzales v. Carhart, 127 S. Ct. 1610, 1640 (2007) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).Here, too, Ginsburg’s pioneering role in litigating sex-equality cases that challenged“archaic” stereotypes about women’s capacities likely informed her critique of themajority’s denial of women’s decisional autonomy for a “way of thinking” that “reflectsancient notions about women’s place in the family and under the Constitution – ideas thathave long since been discredited.” Id. at 1649. Thus, Guinier observes: “In Carhart, JusticeGinsburg showed she well understands how expressive harms that demean women based onnineteenth-century stereotypes discourage their active participation in democracy.” Guinier,supra note 5, at 50. 32 Henderson, supra note 17, at 1576 (observing the tendency “to deny a role toempathetic responses in . . . approaches to legal problems” and arguing that allowing such arole will lead to improved decision-making). 33 Id. at 1574. 34 Id. at 1576. 35 Id. at 1579. 36 Id. at 1576.

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594 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:589 To illustrate, she contends that certain Justices’ empathy for the narrativespresented to them best explains the decisions in Brown v. Board of Education37and Shapiro v. Thompson.38 By contrast, Roe v. Wade39 and its progeny reflecta selective empathy, a “failure to hear certain empathic narratives,” whileBowers v. Hardwick40 reflects a “complete failure of empathy.”41 There havebeen dramatic changes to the constitutional law landscape in these areas sinceHenderson wrote. Notably, in contrast to Hardwick’s lack of empathy forhomosexuals, Lawrence v. Texas, in overruling Hardwick, spoke of the“dignity” to which homosexuals were entitled and spoke respectfully of theirintimate association.42 Nonetheless, Henderson’s plea to look at emotion as acomponent of judging is still timely, as the recent outpouring of scholarshipabout law and emotion suggests.43 Moreover, legal scholars continue to studythe role of narrative and storytelling in key Supreme Court cases and howstories can change the law as well as a society’s self-understanding.44 It is helpful to situate Guinier’s project of demosprudence through dissent inthe context of Henderson’s plea and these ongoing strands of legal inquiry.But doing so also suggests the new ground opened up by Guinier’s project.For example, Henderson illuminates how either the presence or absence ofempathy shaped various Supreme Court opinions.45 By contrast, Guinier looksto biography as a partial explanation for why a particular Justice would choosethe form of an oral dissent and speak directly to “ordinary citizens.”46 Seekingto explain the role of empathy in Brown, Henderson points to the Court’s 37 347 U.S. 483, 495 (1954). 38 394 U.S. 618, 627 (1969) (invalidating state laws which required denying welfarebenefits to new residents for a full year); see Henderson, supra note 17, at 1577 (discussingthe impact of empathy in Brown and Shapiro). 39 410 U.S. 113, 153 (1973). 40 478 U.S. 186, 190 (1986), overruled by Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). 41 Henderson, supra note 17, at 1577. 42 See Lawrence, 539 U.S. at 578. Further, Henderson concludes her article with areference to empathy, reminding us of our “common humanity and responsibility to oneanother.” Henderson, supra note 17, at 1653. Indeed, in Goodridge v. Department ofPublic Health, 798 N.E.2d 941 (Mass. 2003), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courtappealed to the “common humanity” of same-sex and opposite-sex couples. Id. at 955.Common humanity or shared human aspirations to marriage are themes in that opinion andother state high court opinions receptive to constitutional challenges by same-sex couples tostate marriage laws, as is the notion that gay men and lesbians are neighbors, not strangers.See, e.g., Lewis v. Harris, 908 A.2d 196, 218 (N.J. 2006) (explaining that same-sex couples“are our neighbors, our co-workers, and our friends”). 43 For a helpful introduction to the literature, see generally THE PASSIONS OF LAW (SusanA. Bandes ed., 1999). 44 See ANTHONY G. AMSTERDAM & JEROME BRUNER, MINDING THE LAW 110-64 (2000). 45 Henderson, supra note 17, at 1577, 1649-50 (discussing empathy’s role in SupremeCourt cases dealing with segregation, poverty, abortion, and homosexuality). 46 Guinier, supra note 5, at 59.

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2009] EMPATHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE 595recognition of human emotion in Brown’s famous language regarding howracial school segregation creates in black children a “feeling of inferiority as totheir status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a wayunlikely ever to be undone.”47 How did the Court come to that understanding?In part, through then-attorney Thurgood Marshall’s arguments and the experttestimony presented by Dr. Kenneth Clark;48 but the Court’s receptivity tothese arguments may have had roots in the experiences of particular membersof the Court. Thus, Henderson recounts how Justice Frankfurter struggled toreconcile his commitment to legality – his view of the proper constitutionalresult – with his conviction that segregation was repugnant.49 Hendersonrecounts Frankfurter’s experience as a Jew who had only partially succeeded atassimilating and posits that as “a member of a group subjected to the worstforms of racism, prejudice, and torture throughout history . . . [t]he pain of theexperience of being Jewish could not help but resonate even if only slightly tothe pain of another oppressed minority.”50 Frankfurter had also been advisorycounsel to the NAACP.51 Biographer H.N. Hirsch further suggests thatFrankfurter’s willingness to go along with the Court’s decision may havestemmed from “the personal value [he] attached to the importance of publicschools as a means of integration into American society.”52 A common aspect of both Henderson’s and Guinier’s projects is theemphasis on taking action.53 The third element of empathy, noted above, is“action brought about by experiencing the distress of another.”54 Empathy is a 47 Henderson, supra note 17, at 1594 (quoting Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483, 494(1954)). 48 See id. at 1596-1603 (discussing Thurgood Marshall’s arguments in Brown and therole played by Dr. Kenneth Clark’s expert testimony on the social science research).Henderson notes that some members of the Court were not persuaded by this resort to socialscience. Id. at 1603-04 (examining the responses of Justices Jackson and Frankfurter to thesociological narrative used by the NAACP). It lies beyond the scope of this Essay todiscuss the subsequent debates about this strategy and controversy over Dr. Clark’stestimony. But for a sampling of that debate, see, for example, Grutter v. Bollinger, 539U.S. 306, 264-65 (2003) (Thomas, J., dissenting) (deriding the majority’s heavy reliance onone-sided social science evidence when other social science evidence shows differentconclusions); Edmond Cahn, Jurisprudence, 30 N.Y.U. L. REV. 150, 153-54 (1955)(considering the dilemma of using “the Brandeis brief, filled with sociological andeconomic data for the judges’ information” to overturn legislation). 49 See Henderson, supra note 17, at 1604-05. 50 Id. at 1604. 51 See id. 52 H.N. HIRSCH, THE ENIGMA OF FELIX FRANKFURTER 195 n.* (1981). 53 See Guinier, supra note 5, at 50 (“[D]emosprudential dissents summon the public –through their representatives or their own marching feet – to act in the name ofdemocracy.”); Henderson, supra note 17, at 1579. 54 See supra note 35 and accompanying text.

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596 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:589way of knowing that is a “catalyst for action.”55 The relevant action, inHenderson’s analysis, is reaching a legal conclusion that will address the harmthat another is suffering, whether ordering the desegregation of schools or, asin Shapiro v. Thompson, affording poor people their constitutional right totravel to another state to be with family or to improve their lot.56 The thirdelement of Guinier’s definition of a demosprudential dissent is “facilitative,”or, in effect, catalytic.57 Guinier explains: “[T]he dissenting opinion speaks tonon-judicial actors, whether legislators, local thought leaders, or ordinarypeople, and encourages them to step in or step up to revisit the majority’sconclusions.”58 While Henderson introduces greater attention to empathy toencourage better judging and opinions informed by appreciation for “ourcommon humanity,”59 Guinier urges dissenting Justices to view their dissentsas an opportunity to expand the arena of democratic action andaccountability.60 Guinier, in her concluding pages, turns to majority opinionsas a form of demosprudence.61 Although legal academics criticized Brown forits lack of “well-developed legal reasoning,” they fail to see its“demosprudential quality”; its very “accessibility and forcefulness were theinspiration for a social movement that gave the opinion its legs.”62 In this brief Essay, I cannot offer a thorough discussion of the costs andbenefits of Guinier’s demosprudential dissent strategy. This may be due inpart to the temptation to bring a results-oriented approach to assessing suchdissents. Thus, because I disagree with the Ledbetter ruling, I like that JusticeGinsburg’s oral dissent spurred Lily Ledbetter and Congress to take up thecause of “fixing” the Court’s ruling through legislative change.63 Indeed,Congress has already taken action, endorsed first by President Obama as a 55 See Henderson, supra note 17, at 1579. 56 Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 629 (1969) (“An indigent who desires to migrate,resettle, find a new job, and start a new life will doubtless hesitate if he knows that he mustrisk making the move without the possibility of falling back on state welfare assistance.”);see also Henderson, supra note 17, at 1615-17 (describing the majority opinion in Shapiroas focused on the individual indigents whose constitutional right to travel had been impededby the states’ one-year residency requirement for welfare benefits). 57 Guinier, supra note 5, at 48. The other two elements are (1) “on a substantive level,the dissent probes or tests a particular understanding of democracy,” and (2) “its style likelydeviates from the conventional point-by-point refutation of the majority’s logical flaws,”and instead “may tell a good ‘public story,’ built upon shared experiences and commonconcerns” or use other dramatic methods. Id. at 47-48. 58 Id. at 48. 59 Henderson, supra note 17, at 1653. 60 Guinier, supra note 5, at 131 (urging that “[t]he time is ripe . . . for the Court to seebeyond academics to the people themselves as a source of democratic authority andaccountability”). 61 See id. at 130-31. 62 Id. at 131. 63 Id. at 41.

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2009] EMPATHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE 597Senator and candidate, and subsequently, as President, when he signed theLilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.64 By contrast, because I agree with the resultreached by the majority in Lawrence and also support opening up civilmarriage to same-sex couples, I dislike Justice Scalia’s warning to “ordinarypeople” – “[d]o not believe it” (that is, the majority’s disclaimer that the casedoes not involve formally recognizing homosexual relationships) – when hecontends that soon the nation will have same-sex marriage foisted upon it bythe federal judiciary and that the majority signals the death knell of all“morals” legislation.65 I dislike it both as a misreading of Lawrence, but alsobecause there is reason to believe that his dissent did catalyze opponents ofsame-sex marriage to renew efforts to pass state “defense of marriage” lawsand amend state constitutions to forbid same-sex couples from marrying, aswell as to amend the U.S. Constitution to bar such marriages.66 Putting this results-oriented reaction aside, I am drawn to Guinier’semphasis on the educative role of Supreme Court opinions generally, ofdissents in particular, and of her call for an expanded sphere of democraticaction.67 Finally, her examination of how biography may shape judicialdecision-making68 is a timely one as a new President faces the prospect ofmaking a number of judicial nominations. To return to Henderson, howbiography shapes the capacity for empathy may well prove an important themein that process.69 II. PRESIDENT OBAMA, EMPATHY, AND JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS Shortly before the 2008 presidential election, Professor Steven Calabresi, inan editorial in the Wall Street Journal, drew attention to then-candidate BarackObama’s statement about how he would select judges: [W]e need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s 64 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, Pub. L. No. 111-2, 123 Stat. 5 (to be codified at42 U.S.C. §2000a). For President Obama’s remarks on signing this bill, see Remarks onSigning the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, DAILY COMP. PRES. DOC. No. 33 (Jan. 29,2009) [hereinafter Remarks on Signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act]. 65 Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 599-605 (2003) (Scalia, J., dissenting). 66 See Guinier, supra note 5, at 98 (describing the response to Justice Scalia’s dissent inLawrence). Having criticized Scalia’s dissent in part for its catalytic effect, I shouldacknowledge that the majority opinion itself offended some proponents of traditionalmarriage and of a proper state role in using the criminal law to instill moral values; theyprobably did not need Justice Scalia’s opinion to motivate them. It is also likely that evenwithout Justice Ginsburg’s exhortation, those committed to pay equity for women wouldlikely have acted to rectify the Court’s ruling. 67 Id. at 134 (“In this tradition, Justices teach the public to identify with the constitutionalvalues at stake and invite them to speak back in a voice that is all their own.”). 68 See id. at 32-45. 69 See supra note 17 and accompanying text.

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598 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:589 like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.70Calabresi warned that this means “[e]mpathy, not justice, ought to be themission of the federal courts, and the redistribution of wealth should be theirmantra” – a dangerous departure from the traditional image of justice, orJustitia, as blind-folded.71 This recent editorial suggests the continuingrelevance of a perceived dichotomy between legality and empathy.72 Calabresiexpresses the contrast as between justice and empathy: “To the traditional viewof justice as a blindfolded person weighing legal claims fairly on a scale,[Obama] wants to tear the blindfold off, so the judge can rule for the party heempathizes with most.”73 Calabresi warns that “[n]othing less than the veryidea of liberty and the rule of law are at stake in this election,” concluding that“[w]e should not let Mr. Obama replace justice with empathy in our nation’scourtrooms.”74 Now that Senator Obama is President Obama, we will have the opportunityto learn more about his understanding of empathy and, presumably, his critics’fears of the antithesis between justice and empathy. Why does PresidentObama believe empathy is important to judging and how does he think itshould shape judicial reasoning? Some answers appear in his remarks aboutwhy he voted against confirming John Roberts as Chief Justice of the SupremeCourt.75 Then-Senator Obama explained that he was “sorely tempted to votefor Judge Roberts” based on, among other things, his conversations with then-Judge Roberts, Roberts’s resume, comportment, temperament, humility,personal decency, and love for the law.76 Moreover, he believed that JudgeRoberts had deep respect for the “basic precepts that go into deciding 95percent of the cases that come before the Federal court – adherence toprecedence [sic], a certain modesty in reading statutes and constitutional text, arespect for procedural regularity, and an impartiality in presiding over the 70 Calabresi, supra note 18 (emphasis added) (quoting Senator Barack Obama, Speech tothe Planned Parenthood Action Fund (July 17, 2007), available athttp://lauraetch.googlepages.com/barackobamabeforeplannedparenthoodaction. 71 Id. Although I am not taking up here Calabresi’s attack on redistribution, Sotirios A.Barber (a contributor to this symposium), in a letter to the Wall Street Journal, pointed outthe problems with Calabresi’s dichotomy: courts have a role in ensuring that governmentfulfill its object of securing the “general Welfare, and . . . the Blessings of Liberty.” SotiriosA. Barber, Letter to the Editor, Any Big Change to the Courts Will Take a Long Time, WALLST. J., Nov. 7, 2008, at A16 (quoting U.S. CONST. pmbl.). 72 See Calabresi, supra note 18. 73 Id. 74 Id. 75 See 151 CONG. REC. S10,365-66 (daily ed. Sept. 22, 2005). 76 Id. at S10,366 (statement of Sen. Obama).

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2009] EMPATHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE 599adversarial system.”77 The problem, Obama explained, was the other fivepercent of cases: The problem I face . . . is that while adherence to legal precedent and rules of statutory or constitutional construction will dispose of 95 percent of the cases that come before a court, so that both a Scalia and a Ginsburg will arrive at the same place most of the time on those 95 percent of the cases – what matters on the Supreme Court is those 5 percent of cases that are truly difficult. In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.78 Thus, Obama explicitly identifies empathy as an important personal qualitythat is not antagonistic to justice, but is an important supplement when “rule oflaw” values alone do not supply an answer.79 In “hard cases,” he continues,where constitutional text is not “directly on point,” and statutory language notperfectly clear, “the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge’sheart.”80 Specific case examples Obama provides are whether a right ofprivacy encompasses a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy or whether aperson with disabilities has a right to accommodation so that “they can workalongside those who are nondisabled.”81 He notes that in their conversations,Judge Roberts said it was “not easy for him to talk about his values and hisdeeper feelings,” but that “he doesn’t like bullies and has always viewed thelaw as a way of evening out the playing field between the strong and theweak.”82 Senator Obama, while “impressed with that statement” because itmirrored his own view of law, found Judge Roberts’s record to the contrary:“[I]t is my personal estimation that he has far more often used his formidableskills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak,” for example, sidingwith “those who were dismissive of efforts to eradicate the remnants of racialdiscrimination in our political process” and of those who dismiss “the concernsthat it is harder to make it in this world and in this economy when you are awoman rather than a man.”83 Obama concluded that because he had to “givemore weight to his deeds” than his words, he must vote against Judge Roberts,although he hoped that Judge Roberts would prove to have a“jurisprudence . . . that stands up to the bullies of all ideological stripes.”84 77 Id. 78 Id. 79 See id. 80 Id. 81 Id. 82 Id. 83 Id. 84 Id.

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600 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:589 Obama’s remarks opposing the confirmation of Samuel Alito to theSupreme Court and Janice Rogers Brown to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appealsreiterate his concerns about appointing a judge who consistently sides with thepowerful over the powerless.85 Does this concern evidence a disregard forjustice or the rule of law? To the contrary, Obama appeals to the idea – voicedby Roberts – that the law should afford a chance to even an unequal playingfield.86 To return to the speech Calabresi criticized, Obama related the needfor “heart” or “empathy” to the need for judges to be able to understand theexperience of being part of a marginalized or disadvantaged group.87 Calabresicorrectly observes that Obama’s vision is not a model of judicial blindness.88However, removing the blindfold does not suggest an abandonment of the ruleof law or justice. As a burgeoning literature on the image of Justitia suggests,the very isolation of Justitia from the litigants before her may contribute to afailure to secure justice.89 Thus, feminist, Critical Race, and other legalscholars invite reflection on whether removing the blindfold might be anappropriate updating of Justitia which would allow for a useful transcending ofoverly sharp dichotomies between justice and care, legality and empathy, oreven judgment and mercy.90 President Obama’s election squarely puts theissue of the qualities sought in adjudication and the role of judges on the tablein perhaps new and fruitful ways. We may also see more embodiment of 85 See 152 CONG. REC. S190 (daily ed. Jan. 26, 2006) (statement of Sen. Obama)(“[W]hen I examine the philosophy, ideology, and record of Samuel Alito, I’m deeplytroubled.”). In opposing Janice Rogers Brown’s nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court ofAppeals, Obama referred to her as a “political activist who happens to be a judge,” whoused her position on the bench to further “social Darwinism, a view of America that saysthere is not a problem that cannot be solved by making sure that the rich get richer and thepoor get poorer.” 151 CONG. REC. S6178 (daily ed. June 8, 2005) (statement of Sen.Obama). 86 See 151 CONG. REC. S10,366 (daily ed. Sept. 22, 2005) (statement of Sen. Obama). 87 See Calabresi, supra note 18. 88 See id. 89 See, e.g., ROBIN WEST, CARING FOR JUSTICE 27-60 (1997) (discussing the limitations ofviewing justice as blindfolded in order to be impartial and universal). 90 For feminist critiques, see id. at 50, 51-52 (arguing for the integration of care andjustice and a relational ethic on which judges should recognize the “particular claims of theparticular litigants on the court’s legal and moral imagination and resources”); Judith Resnik& Dennis E. Curtis, Representing Justice: From Renaissance Iconography to Twenty-First-Century Courthouses, 151 PROC. AM. PHIL. SOC’Y 139, 160-64 (2007) (discussing themeaning of the blindfold on the image of Justice from a historical perspective); see alsoJudith Resnik, Reconstructing Equality: Of Justice, Justicia, and the Gender of Jurisdiction,14 YALE J.L. & FEMINISM 393, 396, 419 (2002) (discussing the “irony of the longstandingassociation of the female body with Justice,” given historic forms of sex inequality andcontemporary failures to prevent violence against women). For a Critical Race Theoryperspective, see Bennett Capers, On Justitia, Race, Gender, and Blindness, 12 MICH. J.RACE & L. 203, 206-07 (2006) (questioning the blindness of Justice when race plays such animportant role in society).

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2009] EMPATHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE 601Justice Thurgood Marshall’s ideal of judges understanding “how peoplelive.”91 III. THE ROLE OF THE SUPREME COURT IN SPURRING SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION My third comment on Professor Guinier’s article concerns the relationshipbetween her project and the broader issue of “the constitution outside thecourts,” that is, the idea that courts alone cannot – and should not – bring aboutthe full realization of constitutional ideals.92 The literature on this topic is toovast to engage in any detail in this brief Essay, but I will focus on one recentcontribution by political scientist Rogers Smith.93 Guinier contemplatesdemosprudential dissents as appropriate catalysts when the dissenter believesthe majority is wrong and seeks to educate and mobilize the public either tohave a critical discourse about the law or to make efforts to bring about lawreform.94 In contrast, Smith posits that courts necessarily have a relativelylimited role to play in bringing about the fundamental structural institutionalchange that is needed to bring about full, equal citizenship – substantiveequality – for minorities and for women.95 He refers to the marginality of theSupreme Court because “the most important tasks in restructuring Americaninstitutions to remove barriers to meaningfully equal citizenship for womenand men now go far beyond the capacities and the legitimate authority of thejudiciary when engaged in constitutional interpretation.”96 For example, lawsexplicitly disadvantaging women are rare and “women have far greater formalopportunities than in the past”; however, “overall public policies and socialpractices still structure the lives of most women so that they carrydisproportionate responsibilities for family and household care and face greaterdifficulties acquiring economic resources.”97 Compounding this with otherfactors like sexual harassment in the workplace, welfare policies affecting low-income women, and continuing bias in criminal justice systems, leads to theresult that “overall, women do not really have meaningfully equal chances togain and exercise political influence, or to have ‘full citizenship stature . . .[defined by Justice Ginsburg as] equal opportunity to aspire, achieve,participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents andcapacities.’”98 91 United States v. Kras, 409 U.S. 434, 460 (1973) (Marshall, J., dissenting). 92 See, e.g., MARK TUSHNET, TAKING THE CONSTITUTION AWAY FROM THE COURTS 181-82(1999) (defining “populist constitutional law” as “treat[ing] constitutional law not assomething in the hands of lawyers and judges but in the hands of the people themselves”). 93 Smith, supra note 19. 94 See Guinier, supra note 5. 95 See Smith, supra note 19 (manuscript at 4). 96 Id. (manuscript at 18). 97 Id. 98 Id. (manuscript at 19) (quoting United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 532 (1996)).

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602 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:589 What can courts, and the Supreme Court in particular, do to bring about thestructural transformation needed to secure equal citizenship? While Smithcautions against looking to the Court for such structural change, he argues thatit can – and should – play a helpful, perhaps catalytic role by pointing out theneed for such transformation: The courts do have a constitutional duty to pursue gender equality and civic equality to the very margins of their institutional competence. Even when it would be wrong for them to devise and mandate sweeping remedies, they should scrutinize more closely public policies and institutional arrangements that foster conditions in which women do not on balance have equal practical opportunities to be politically active citizens. Their rulings can then help highlight the most important tasks of civic restructuring that confront the rest of us.99For example, Smith applauds the Court’s decision in Nevada Department ofHuman Resources v. Hibbs100 for upholding a private right of action under theFamily and Medical Leave Act.101 At the same time, he faults Chief JusticeRehnquist’s majority opinion for not linking work/family conflict – and thecontinuing problem of how mutually reinforcing stereotypes about women andmen hinder their ability to be parents and workers – to women’s equalcitizenship.102 CONCLUSION: PURSUING JUSTICE IN EVERYDAY LIFE Professor Guinier’s invitation to consider the potential of Supreme Courtdissents to spur “ordinary people” to action encourages her readers in the legalacademy to reflect on the role of courts in catalyzing citizens to engage insocial and constitutional change. Her specific examples of Lilly Ledbetter andPat Todd suggest that sometimes an impassioned oral dissent can strike aresonant chord with a listener who, like the dissenter, believes the Court hasfailed to do justice and uphold constitutional values in the case before it. Itseems a propitious time, with the election of President Obama, to consider thepotential for such oral dissents. As noted above, President Obama identifiesempathy and the ability to appreciate the stories of the lives of themarginalized and the powerless as an important judicial quality. But beyond the executive’s role in the judicial appointment process, theexecutive may also play a role in inspiring activism. After all, the Obamacampaign and the Democratic Convention made much of Lilly Ledbetter’s 99 Id. (manuscript at 4-5). 100 538 U.S. 721 (2003). 101 Id. at 724-25; see Smith, supra note 19 (manuscript at 3). 102 Smith, supra note 19 (manuscript at 4) (“[T]he problem[] presented [in Hibbs] [was a]crucial one[] for the well-being of women. But none of the Justices who wrote opinionsgave any substantial, explicit attention to issues of gender and equal constitutionalcitizenship.”).

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2009] EMPATHY AND SOCIAL CHANGE 603fight for justice.103 Obama often links such struggles to a quest to honor coreAmerican principles. Thus, upon signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair PayRestoration Act, President Obama described her as deciding “that there was aprinciple at stake, something worth fighting for,” noting that her long journeyculminated in a law “which will help others get the justice that she wasdenied.”104 First Lady Michelle Obama described “Lilly’s story and thebroader issue of equal pay” as a concern “voiced over and over and over”during the campaign; at the signing, she praised Ledbetter as an “extraordinarywoman” who “knew unfairness when she saw it, and was willing to dosomething about it because it was the right thing to do.”105 At the signing ofthe Act, Ledbetter herself said that even though she would “never see a centfrom my case,” her “richer reward” is that “my daughters and granddaughters,and your daughters and granddaughters, will have a better deal.”106 In loftyrhetoric, President Obama’s signing statement linked the specific legislation toa vindication of fundamental national principles: “It is fitting that the very firstbill that I sign . . . is upholding one of this nation’s founding principles: that weare all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version ofhappiness.”107 Moreover, his populist rhetoric links justice to everyday life:“Justice isn’t about some abstract legal theory, or footnote in a casebook. It’sabout how our laws affect the daily lives and the daily realities of people: theirability to make a living and care for their families and achieve their goals.”108 The political theater of President Obama signing the bill while surroundedby Ledbetter, First Lady Michelle Obama, and female lawmakers all adornedin a bold blaze of red (the color of pay equity) was inspired and inspiring.109Moreover, his praise of Ledbetter and of other “advocates” who worked hardto “stand[] for what’s right” may itself inspire further social activism, asordinary people see what can result from such efforts.110 Thus, even asProfessor Guinier invites the Court to open up new possibilities of democratic 103 Ledbetter spoke at the Democratic Convention, see Lilly Ledbetter, Address to theDemocratic National Convention (Aug. 26, 2008), http://www.demconvention.com/lily-ledbetter/, and Obama pledged during his campaign to sign a law to overturn the Court’sdecision. See CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN: BARACK OBAMA’S PLAN TO RENEW AMERICA’SPROMISE 165 (2008) (“As President, Barack Obama will . . . [s]ign into law the Fair PayRestoration Act that Barack Obama co-introduced to overturn last year’s Supreme Courtdecision that made it harder for women to file pay-discrimination claims after they becomevictims of discriminatory compensation.”); Robert Pear, Justices’ Ruling in DiscriminationCase May Draw Quick Action by Obama, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 5, 2009, at A13. 104 Remarks on Signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, supra note 64, at 1. 105 The White House Blog, http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/AWonderfulDay/ (Jan.29, 2009, 12:00 EST). 106 Id. 107 Remarks on Signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, supra note 64, at 1. 108 Id. 109 See The White House Blog, supra note 105. 110 Remarks on Signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, supra note 64, at 2.

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604 BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 89:589engagement through demosprudential dissent, it is worth directing attention tothe potential of the executive, in this “new era of responsibility,”111 to serve asan even more powerful catalyst to democratic engagement and vindication ofcore constitutional principles and national values. 111 Inaugural Address, DAILY COMP. PRES. DOC. No 1, at 4 (Jan. 20, 2009).